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Garcia: Khan was a lot faster than I thought he would be

By William Mackay: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (25-0, 16 KO’s) was a little bit in shock in facing Amir Khan last July in his 4th round TKO victory over him in Las Vegas, Nevada. Garcia said he wasn’t expecting the kind of hand speed that Khan possessed in that fight and that’s why he was getting hit so often by Khan in the first couple of rounds. It wasn’t until Garcia adjusted to Khan’s speed that he was finally able to start landing his own shots.

Speaking with esnewsreporting.co, Garcia said “At first I wasn’t even seeing his punches. I was like snap. He was a lot faster than I expected. He wasn’t hurting me but it was fast. I started to see his punches in the 2nd and in the beginning of the 3rd. That’s when I started to land a couple of body shots and walking him down.”

Garcia went onto say that he sees Khan as a “reckless” fighter due to his brawling style of fighting.

It’s really bad news for Khan that Garcia is able to adjust to his speed because in a rematch the only real thing that Khan has going for him is his speed. He’s not going to be able hit and run for 12 rounds. We saw Khan try to do that against Lamont Peterson and it didn’t work. We saw Khan run from Marcos Maidana and win a fight that he probably would have been knocked out in the 10th round had the referee not separated the action so many times while Maidana was trying to finish Khan off along the ropes.

Khan’s hand speed is a big asset no doubt, but if his opponent is able to adjust to his speed then it comes down to whether Khan can get his opponent out of their before they get him out, and I don’t think he’s going to be knocking Garcia out next time they fight. Golden Boy might want to re-think the idea of putting Khan back in with Garcia because that might not be such a good idea.